Letter to the Editor: Stance on Tobacco

By MIKE SAWYER, exec. directorI Will Never Use Tobacco, Inc.Birmingham, Ala.

Editor,

I am a graduate of a Christian seminary in Kentucky, and have never entered a Latter-day Saints church building. However, I continue to praise The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints for their discipline in preventing tobacco addiction, thus circumventing the pain and suffering of those who might take the "Tobacco Road: Dead End for Life."

If you check the tobacco-related deaths for the United States as recorded by the Centers for Disease Control, you will discover that Utah continues to be the lowest in all areas of tobacco-related matters.

A relative of mine was awarded work on the construction of a Mormon church in southeast Alabama many years ago and had to sign a contract for "no tobacco usage" on the job site.

Ironically, I was asked to leave two United Methodist churches in the tobacco farming state of Kentucky in 1989, for preaching "tobacco kills" sermons.

Regretfully, tobacco is the worst man-made disaster of humanity, against which the Church of the Latter-day Saints has taken a firm stand and for that they have my respect.